America Unmoored from Three Vital Anchors (Part 2)

Before 1960, there was a comprehensive set of laws in each state prohibiting nearly everything identified in the Bible as sin, i.e. doing something my way instead of God’s way. Why? Until that time, the American culture rested on the three rock-solid anchors, 1) the Bible (spiritual), 2) the Declaration of Independence/U.S. Constitution combination (physical/intellectual), and 3) the God-created, God-designed virtually impregnable family (emotional). The interactions among people and groups aligned with those anchors assured cohesive families and a culture that would be sustained in perpetuity.

However, long before 1960 forces began to grow and gather in a way that would create unprecedented pressures for Judeo-Christian tradition and the American culture. All three anchors would be attacked. Charles Darwin published, The Origin of the Species By Means of Natural Selection or the Preservation of Favored Races in the Struggle for Life, in 1859. It became known as the theory of evolution, purporting that all life forms evolved by chance over extremely long periods of time. Darwin’s theory appeared to give scientific sanction to a concept that had been around for a very long time. Although it has been shown by Dr. Lloyd Stebbins and many others that evolution in its purist form is not possible, the theory of evolution became the basis for some to claim that God does not exist. The first anchor, the Bible, came quickly under attack.The theory of evolution has since become embedded throughout America’s public school systems. It is taught as factual, despite abundant flaws.

The relentless attacks on Judeo-Christian tradition were just the beginning. It was later suggested that if all life formed by an evolutionary process, then other realms of civilizational development should also be amenable to long, slow evolutionary changes.

The Founders intended and declared the Constitution to be a firm anchor-like foundational document for the American culture. They knew that although societies change over time, the self-centered essence of human nature does not change. John Adams proclaimed, “We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge, or gallantry, would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” [emphasis added]

If the “passions of men” were not voluntarily restrained and reigned-in by law and by Scripture, the Great American Experiment in self-government would fail. Yet, in modern times there has been a powerful movement claiming that the Constitution must be flexible and keep up with or evolve with the times. Hence, the second anchor has been subjected to ruthless attack.

The widely acclaimed, but fraudulent, Dr. Alfred Kinsey falsely claimed that the sexual and moral behavior of Americans was nowhere near the conservative Biblical beliefs that prevailed at the time. His misguided work projected an image of a coast to coast orgy. As an aggressive atheist, Kinsey’s personal mission was to destroy all the Biblical limits on sexual behavior. In his mind, morals had to evolve. His close friends in the legal profession were persuaded that the laws had to evolve to more closely match the supposed real behaviors of American society. Since then, thousands of laws prohibiting immoral behavior have been repealed.

Similarly, the family had to evolve (or devolve?) accordingly. The definition of “family” has been re-defined and diluted to the point of near non-existence. A wave of no-fault divorce laws swept the country in the 1970s and 1980s, fracturing the concept of personal responsibility and guaranteeing record high divorce rates. The United States is among the few countries with the highest divorce rates in the world. The third anchor has been unmercifully attacked.

The stability of the family and sustainability of the American culture exist to the extent that we tenaciously hang on to all three anchors. Humanism attacks and undermines all three, setting adrift the ship of life, which will eventually be caught in the vortex of a perfect storm and sink. A culture without direction and purpose collapses. “Where there is no vision, the people perish.” [Proverbs 29:18 KJV]

What has been the impact on the American culture? Are believers to blame? Watch for the next blog.